7/27/2010

Here, Take This Placebo

Maybe because my brain is fried from editing, or maybe because my brain is fried from editing ... um ... wait.

I recently saw someone refer to the word meta. So I, of course, looked it up in the ever helpful Urban Dictionary, the reference resource of champions. Or the breakfast cereal of champions. Or the website for lazy people who don't want to have to think too hard about their definitions.

Here's what I found:

So I Googled self-referential. I found these examples:

I'm the humblest person I know.

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

The workshop on procrastination has been cancelled, as no-one got around to enrolling.

Anyone who visits a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.

We never make misteaks.

87.5% of all statistics are made up.

The technical term for "being unable to remember the word you want" is, uh ...

There are three types of people in the world: those who can count and those who can't.

The two rules for success are:
1. Never tell them everything you know.

There are 10 types of people: those who understand binary and those who don't.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

There should be a rule that we don't talk about politics.

SO ... I'm still not sure I understand meta. Doesn't meta = self-referential? And if it does, wouldn't that make it a synonym, not a definition? Or does definition = synonym?

It really seems as if I should be able to wrap my brain around this. I mean, I watched Dawson's Creek. And not in re-runs.

I only know "meta" in terms of "metacognition." That's when you're aware of yourself--i.e. you are aware that you learn best if you have visual aids, or you are aware that you're good at writing but bad at drawing.

Meta is a creation of art that is about the art rather than creating something new. A great example is the book THE HOURS. It was a book based on and about Virginia Woolf's book MRS DALLOWAY. That's meta. The movie THE PLAYER is also a great example. It's a movie about the movie industry. See?